


The Man on the Newspaper

by MaiKusakabe



Series: Life as a Whitebeard Pirate [10]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Chapter 794, Gen, Spoilers, spoilers for dressrosa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaiKusakabe/pseuds/MaiKusakabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever Ace sees this man, he can't help thinking about his dead brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man on the Newspaper

**Author's Note:**

> After reading the latest chapter, I had to write this. There are no specific spoilers for chapter 794, but those that have read it will find another meaning to the story.
> 
> This hasn’t been beta-read, so I apologize for any mistakes, I just wanted to post it right away.

Ace smiled. It wasn’t a happy expression, not by a long shot. It was more like a mix of longing and a strange twisted fondness that tugged his lips up into a sad mockery of a real smile. He couldn’t help it, ever since he had first seen the man on the newspaper all that time ago, his mind had drawn a comparison, connected some common traits, and whenever he saw the man on the newspaper —and he appeared there quite frequently for someone whose job was supposed to rely on utmost secrecy— his thoughts wandered down the same path.

“You know him?”

Ace startled, and it was sheer luck that he didn’t lash out on instinct. He still wasn’t entirely used to being a member of the Whitebeard Pirates instead of the captain’s wannabe murderer, and he tensed whenever someone approached him unexpectedly. Not that it would have mattered if he _had_ lashed out, he thought as Marco slid into the bench next to him, because Marco had already proven that Ace couldn’t really hurt him.

“No,” Ace answered, looking back down at the picture of the grinning man.

Marco tilted his head, watching him.

“Really? You’re smiling as if you do.”

Ace shook his head.

“I don’t know him, it’s just… he kind of reminds me of my brother.”

“Luffy?” Marco asked, sounding a little dubious, and Ace had to chuckle. Of course, he had already told many members of the crew about Luffy, and the man on the newspaper really seemed nothing like Luffy.

“No. My… other brother. He died,” he confessed, and he could still feel his heart clenching at the thought after so many years.

“Oh.”

Marco didn’t press the subject, and Ace hadn’t expected him to, but for some reason he started speaking. Maybe it had simply been too long since he had talked about Sabo with anyone.

“I met him when we were kids, and we wanted to be pirates. The three of us, really, Luffy, Sabo and me. Sabo was the son of a noble, you see, and nobles in our island are really shitty people, so he wanted out. One day, he couldn’t take it anymore and he decided to set sail early, but his boat was shot down by a Tenryuubito that was visiting the kingdom.” Ace clenched his free hand into a fist. It had taken _years_ for Dadan to tell him the exact circumstances of Sabo’s death, just _who_ had shot Sabo’s boat. She didn’t know which Tenryuubito had been, but the fact that it had been one of them was enough to get Ace’s blood boiling whenever they were mentioned.

He looked down at the picture on the newspaper, the confident guy that was said to be the right hand man of the most wanted criminal in the world.

“Sabo wanted to be a pirate, but I could see him doing what this guy does. He knew just how corrupted the powerful could be, so going around the world freeing countries from corrupted governments… Yeah, I could see him doing something like that.”

Marco rested a hand on his shoulder. It was a comforting gesture, and it helped Ace keep himself anchored to the present, to avoid being dragged into memories from so many years ago. He placed the newspaper on the table, the page with the man’s picture facing down, and looked at Marco.

“You know the worst part?” Ace smiled in self-deprecation. “The papers say this guy’s name is Sabo, too. Sometimes, mostly when it’s dark and the world seems to stop, I almost manage to delude myself into thinking they _might_ both be the same Sabo.”


End file.
